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Universal Death, Part 2
By John R. Gavazzoni
I had not intended to write this sequel to our recent article, Universal Death, but I received a hand-written letter, basically friendly in tone, and affirming our in-Christ brotherhood, but very forthright, even adamant, in its opposition to the article's teaching. As usual, that sort of thing, typically, sends me back to revisit the subject in question as to whether some adjustment to my thinking might be called for. If upon honest evaluation, I find I'm still, all things considered, at peace with what I've written, I become energized anew to make my point emphatically and with added clarity in another follow-up article or series. Therefore, the following:
Death is not only universal, but wondrously, ultimately beneficial for the whole of humanity, even as it is, according to the apostle, Paul, the last enemy. Quite a paradox, to be sure, the proposition that enmity can end up being productively beneficial. Joseph came to understand that the evil his brothers intended for him, God meant for good. That principle shines brightly evident in respect to what God had in view by His sovereign choice to introduce the last enemy, death, into the human experience, and that, universally so.
It is indisputable that the entrance of sin into the world issuing in death being passed on to all men traces to God's determination, for in subjecting all creation to vanity/futility/frustration, God made it certain that any attempt on Eve's part to resist the serpent's crafty seduction would be in vain. Right from the beginning, she was, so to speak, out-gunned. The Genesis record gives no indication of God rushing in with grace-sufficient to rescue humanity's mother. Furthermore, it was unthinkable that Adam should leave her to die alone.....a picture of Christ determined to join His bride in death, that she might be raised with Him in His resurrection. There is always grace-sufficient, but that sufficiency, in the wisdom of God, awaits the opportunity of release that, paradoxically, death provides.
That life might be more abundantly supplied to man, has always been central to the purpose of God. The experience of, "life, and that more abundantly," requires a need proportionate to the supply intended. He who thirsts greatly, drinks deeply. If we were to think of God in anthropomorphic terms - in this case, having a sequential development of thought, one thought leading to another - for God, the visionary thought of resurrection would have preceded His thinking of death. We might imagine God, who "works all things after the counsel of His own will," thinking, "for mankind to join my Son in resurrection will be nothing short of glorious. I can't think of anything more wonderful than man, the creature, being raised up to share in my glory, therefore, we'll need death. No death; no resurrection; no co-glorification."
By the way, I learned from my dear friend, translator of the New Testament and superbly gifted commentator, Jonathan Mitchell, that the Greek word conventionally translated as "glory," includes the idea of imagination. Imagine that! God imagining. The God of glory imagined glory through resurrection by means of death. To wish for, to hope, to be part of an elite company of saints, an elite company of manifested sons of God, and/or to be among those "who remain" being caught up to join the dead in Christ arriving at immortality without dying, is a vain expectation. What such a hope entails is a denial of the universal effectiveness of the death of Christ. Let me explain:
The notion that Christ died for us, as in, instead of us, amounts to a direct theological assault against the apostle Paul's explanation of what Jesus' death accomplished. He died that we might die with Him, in Him, in union with Him. He died, so that all mankind, in union with Him by being created in Him, might die "once and for all," so that death, the death passed on to all men should end in and by His death. All dying, all death, has been gathered together into His death, so that "the death, He died, He died once for all.....," not by not dying, but by fully dying the death passed on from Adam.
To understand the above requires an understanding of the Pauline theological paradigm of "in Christ" along with "Christ in." In Christ, all mankind was included in His death. We all, in Him, died with Him: "for if we have been planted in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." Jesus accomplished that as the Seed of all humanity. When He, in whom, and by whom, all things were created, came into the world created in Him, as the single Man, “Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of the living God," as that single individual Man, the whole that was created in Him, which consists/coheres in Him as what formal theology calls, "the cosmic Christ," continued existing in Him in Seed-form, as we might say, at the DNA level. What God accomplished in Him seminally is all mankind's Reality....again, in Seed-form.
That Seed of all Reality within whom we all live, move, and have our being, lives in us, so that what has been accomplished IN CHRIST, is in earthly existentiality being worked out by CHRIST IN US: The IN CHRIST/CHRIST IN paradigm is Paul's central reference point for understanding how and what God has done for man. Second to that, or along with that, is how Paul shows that, in God's dealings with Abraham, we have the picture of how He deals with all men. Mankind being in Christ, and Christ being in man, along with how God reckons men to be righteous according to how he reckoned Abraham to be righteous by the faith of Christ in Abraham, provides the whole foundation of Paul's understanding of salvation.
What has been universally accomplished in Christ becomes, as it were, existentially fleshed-out by the Christ Seed in all men. Therefore....now think with me....without everyone dying, Christ's death would be unfulfilled, for to repeat, He died that we might die with Him. Universal death to universal resurrection unto glory will be the fulfillment of Jesus dying for all men. While it was necessary for Christ to die (in the Greek) "over” all mankind, i.e., he's got us all covered in His death, it is necessary that all mankind die as a result of His death.
The Reality that is now in the Spirit in Christ at the right hand of God, must become the existential Reality on earth, in all earthenness. The knowledge of the glory inherent in His resurrection must finally "fill all the earth as the waters cover the sea."
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